I work in one of those open offices. Right now it's Noon so the place is partially empty, however I can hear an engineer explaining a concept to a programmer, a PM on a conference call to some idiot that's not catching a clue, a couple of the gals chit-chatting & a Q/A tester on a conference call discussing his test results. Also while I was typing this I saw 3 people walk by, one directly in my line of site and the other two out of the corner of my eye. All this in the space of a couple of minutes. During the working hours it's much worse. Oops, now someone's cell phone is quietly chirping across the room. Makes it very hard to concentrate, also there's the lack of any privacy. Yes, it's nice to see if someone I need to talk to is around, but we have Communicator so I can find out that way, probably even better because it can show if the person can be disturbed. Also we have white noise generators, but all it seems to do is buzz in my ears (maybe it's set up wrong or maybe I'm sensitive to that frequency). Anyway, after 2 years of this, I'm not sold on the advantages.